Ever Go Through A Beach Boys Burn Out?

Shit, yeah, Bob!

Fell deeply in love with these guys around ‘81/2 - I worked my way through the catalogue in a highly non sequential manner (due to the lack of product in stores (new or second hand at the time).  Loved everything (in that special accepting way), warts and all up too and including California Dreaming - but, man, Kokomo, Still Cruisin’ and all of that Bay Watch/Full House phase left me as cold as a stunned mullet.

At the time, as a young uni student I was getting into Indie, Punk, the works and those 10000 year old fossils from Beverly Hills held little appeal.  I took a break until the GV box (holy shit, they just released Smile by stealth), the twofers and PS box.

I’ve raised 3 kids since ‘97 with the last of the gang hitting 18 in late Jan coming - there have been BB free years, time over run by the demands of hungry mouths, tired eyes and crammed washing lines.

I am a little jealous of people coming to the band now - a subscription to spotify, a few PMs here and there, a few bucks on ebay and you can be “up to speed” within a couple of days.  

However, I will always cherish the satisfaction of a record store score or find - I must have flicked through a million record crates along the East Coast of Australia for about 20 years before finally striking upon a copy of POB.

Anyway - with the advent of the web, I was delighted to get my hands on writings, ramblings, reviews by people like Bob Florry, AGD, Cam Mott, Lee Dempsey, Steve Mayo, others who come and go as the fanbase morphs with each year added to the legacy - and discover there are fuckers out there sicker than me for the delights of this disfunctional garage band from Californ-i-a.

Thanks Bob, you fuckin’ rock!

PS, so do The Beatles!

AGD and all, thanks for the kind words. I knew it couldn't be just me. And to Andrew's point, there are some  fans who are trying like crazy to turn their connections with other fans in a revenue stream. Won't name names, but some are really pushing for info and items from me and then selling it as their own.

But, with Brian's music, to quote the GODFATHER movies, everytime I think I am out, they pull me back in!!!!

Yeah for sure. As has been said, you listen too much to something and then you need a break. I played the made in California box so much that finally I woke up one day and needed to hear something else. I am pretty eclectic and like a lot of stuff. I have most kinks (up to about 1971), Stones (tattoo you is the most recent album I ever listen to by them), Beatles (listener to them so much when I was young that I have to be in a certain mood to play them), etc but I also like punk, new wave, country (only old country like George Jones), Motown (especially Marvin Gaye) and even a little rap (it’s fun at parties) but the BBs definitely carries a special place emotionally-I can’t explain why but just the little snippet of walk on by with Brian and Dennis knocks me out more then almost anything else I’ve mentioned-I find it emotionally overpowering. Only thing similar for me is some Elvis stuff. That being said-there Are plenty of BBs songs that I can’t abide-Mike singing his truth is marching on from 1975 is one of the most god awful things recorded by a professional group-but I don’t hold it against them as it was not released-so they knew it too

I feel the same way about I Was Made To Love Her. Love Carl, love the song, the group, the album but cringe at Carl's rendition of this song. Go figure...

This annoys me.  As well as monetizing their (BB) work into YouTube stuff. 

They may have had a reasonable belief that this stuff would come out and why they made those statements, even studio sessions for overdubs as is often the case in film. So there may have been something in the pipeline that just did not materialize.

It happened, even with Smile in the early 70's that Mike would say that it was coming out. I doubt it was malicious and perhaps the record company would float it out there to use as a teaser for the audience to gauge interest or to see if fans had forgotten the work.  He was so nonchalant about it that they were credible comments, and very matter-of-fact. 

The one thing I have not ever done as a fan, is to "hold my breath" until something promised, came out. I was just living my life. And never listened to those who said they never would be on the stage together and we had C50.  It's all good. Sometimes something non- artistic pushes the envelope to release stuff - such as a copyright expiration.  What a motivator!    

I recall Bruce being quoted by a UK music paper back in the very early 1980s as saying that the Smile tapes might soon be released, to benefit UNICEF. Even verbally ordered a copy at Woods, one of the many music & record shops in Halifax.  Hope they aren't still holing a copy for me…

First off, good to see you, Bob!

I'm pretty much in the same boat as Paul. I go through phases and have gone for months,maybe years, without playing Beach Boys music. I've been a fan since 1970, and throughout the 70's I collected all of the original Beach Boys and Beatles albums and 45's with picture sleeves. That wasn't enough, so I had to pick up every bootleg on cassette tape and vinyl that became available (thanks Peter!). Goldmine and Discoveries auctions and record swap meets was my 'hobby' at the time. Then I got married in the 80's and had two kids, so the collecting and fandom had to take a back seat for awhile with work, school, house and car payments, and a wife who didn't quite understand my addiction. I still stayed on top of every new release that came out, though. Then the divorce in the early 90's and all those beautiful Capitol two-fers, box sets, then new Beach Boys message boards popping up on the internet took up a lot of my free time. I was a real Smile-o-phile back then and picked up every new fragment of music that I could find. I'm pretty much burnt out on Smile now. Luckily for us fans, the new releases didn't stop through the 2,000's and it's still going on into 20/20! Can ya believe it? I would definitely not call it "scraping the barrel' as Bruce stated a few years ago. The Beach Boys message boards have always been the best marketing machine Capitol and BRI has ever had.

So the only real hiatus I had was in the 80's but with all the great concerts and ongoing CD's, DVD's, and box sets and copyright releases coming, it's hard to stay away for long.  Plus, this message board with all the good knowledgeable fans keeps this boy going.

My "burnout" isn't ever about the music or group, but the excess bullshit that often comes with it. You don't know how often I long for the days where the only thing I knew about The Beach Boys was that I liked their music.

The cool thing about the copyright extension releases is that they often completely blow away the long accepted narrative of the group, such as "Brian stayed in bed for five years after Smile failed", or "The group was creatively and artistically bankrupt without Brian". So we often find ourselves revisiting what we thought we knew. It feels like we are investigating an entirely new band.

Wow. You rivaled Brian Wilson, who use to listen to "Be My Baby" on his jukebox ten times a day!